1. Don’t Drink the Water. This was a big one. Canada is known for it’s abundance of fresh water. As such, many of us have easy access to clean drinking water, either directly from wells or through our municipalities who filter and chlorinate it long before it reaches the taps so for most places the water is safe to drink. There are of course, and unfortunately so, regions where pollution has made the water undrinkable and regrettably this disproportionately affects our indigenous populations, but for most of the country if your thirsty you can get it from the tap or buy filtered water (for a nicer taste) for very cheap. Cyprus not so much. Their drinking water is primarily taken from the sea and desalinated, but on the way to your tap it picks up many contaminants, particularly heavy metals. In the long term it causes stomach upset and kidney damage. Buying water produced a lot of plastic waste, and is expensive. 2-3 EUR or more per bottle. To those of us used to considering water a right to the point that restaurants don’t usually charge for water, this was a new one.
2. Don’t Flush Toilet Paper This may be my second plumbing related point but it was again surprising. Most public washrooms, and even my apartment bathroom have signage forbidding the flushing of hygiene products and yes, toilet paper counts. The plumbing here simply isn’t built to accommodate it, and as such it goes in the garbage. Something that may seem disgusting at first, but which you soon get used to.
3. The Coffee Here is No Joke: The people of Cyprus take their coffee seriously and strongly. There may be numerous coffee joints in Canada, but I’m sorry Tim Hortons you have been resolutely defeated. The first time I ordered an ice latte, which in Canada would be called just a regular iced coffee, I took far too great a sip as I was instantly hit with a wave of caffeine strong enough to make me sneeze. It felt as if I’d just drunk a mug of pure espresso. By comparison our coffee might as well be called bean flavored water. One small cup of iced coffee here is equivalent to about 3 back home. Other coffee surprises were the fact that they don’t generally seem to add sugar to ice coffee unless you ask, or milk. In restaurants such as Tim Hortons an iced coffee is rarely just black coffee with ice in it. Here not so much.
4. Eggs are not Refrigerated: In Canada all your eggs will be found in the part of the supermarket that’s refrigerated, generally with the milk or cheese etc. There are 2 biological reasons for this. When an egg is laid by a chicken it comes out covered in a thin coating that seals the egg from bacteria and prevents infection, you might hear this called the bloom or the cuticle. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) that regulates most aspects of biosecurity when it comes to food and associated products mandates the commercial washing of eggs in a chlorinated bath to remove debris and kill/remove bacteria and other germs. In doing so, we remove the cuticle and make the egg more permeable to bacteria. Hence eggs are refrigerated to reduce bacterial risk and to extend shelf life. Not so in Cyprus, unlike in Canada eggs come with cuticle intact and are not kept in the fridge. Doing so is not unhealthy, the eggs are safe to eat, but I have been keeping mine in the fridge nonetheless as it extends the shelf life. That being said, wash before you crack!
5. Hugs: As a general rule when meeting someone new in Canada you extend a handshake and a smile. An embrace is reserved for family and for close friends, especially if you haven’t seen them in a while. Not so for Greeks. Several of my Greek classmates and a few Cypriots I’ve met have greeted me with an enthusiastic one armed hug. It’s a friendly gesture, well meaning, and welcoming, although when your not familiar with it it does weird you out a bit.
6. Traffic: While the fact that Cypriots drive on the left is not particularly shocking the manner of their driving and the number of roundabouts is enough to give any timid Canadian driver a heart attack. While stop signs, yield signs, crosswalks, and traffic laws exist, it has been my experience that Cypriots take these things as more of a light suggestion. Most Canadians stop for stop lights. If you see someone runs a red, cuts you off, follows too close, or passes illegally, you may hear less than stereotypically polite language from your fellow motorists as honks and shouts of “A-hole” fill the air. In general, with the exception of speeding, we obey road signs quite well and signal our turns regardless of whether or not there is even anyone else there. Not so here. If crossing the street, when the pedestrian sign comes on, Cypriots will let you pass but skirt around you before the light has changed. They pass seemingly wherever and whenever they feel like it, and the use of a turn signal is seemingly optional. Yet they all seem to get where they need to be safely enough and you don’t see a lot of police handing out tickets to the offenders. You also don’t see a lot of traffic cameras. Furthermore, I have never seen so many large roundabouts in my life. While you find them sporadically in Canadian cities, it is not a stretch to say us Canadians think of them with a sense of pure dread, to those of us in rural areas they are unfamiliar daunting things that spell disaster and endless circling if you don’t know where you’re going. Yet the Cypriots take them on with ease, and I don’t see any of them planning their trips specifically to avoid them.
7. Sidewalks. While the streets and sidewalks of the country are charming, in many areas the roadways and especially the sidewalks do not look like they’ve seen a maintenance person since their installation. You must watch your step as there are missing or loose tiles, uneven, chipped, or unstable concrete, and many places where one can painfully stub their toes or twist an ankle if not paying attention. While some parts of the city of Nicosia are treated with much care than others, it is clear that sidewalk safety is not a particular priority. As much as we curse long lines of construction for resurfacing, maintenance, and paving in Ontario, I am appreciative for how much work our governments do to keep our roads and sidewalks in good condition. So while I’ll give the coffee and the fresh fruit and vegetable award to Cyprus, I’m sorry but I declare our sidewalks to be superiorly maintained.
8. Smoking: One thing you would rarely if ever find in Canada these days is smoking in restaurants. However, here in Cyprus people can smoke on most enclosed patio style restaurants. It is not uncommon to walk into a restaurant and find people smoking inside if the windows and doors are open. Sometimes there will be a non-smoking inner section separated from the smoking area by a few pillars or steps, but if one was sitting in the non-smoking area you would still be getting a significant amount of second hand smoke.
9. Cats Everywhere! Cyprus is home to over 1 Million cats according to Forbes which roam about the streets. Some people adopt them but most of them simply live on their own with the occasional hand out from benevolent humans. As the population of Cyprus is estimated at ~ 1.2 Million, there are quite possibly more cats than humans. You can see them running around from time to time but during the peak of the day they disappear, likely finding places to hide.
10. Island Time. I’d heard of Greek time but I didn’t quite understand it until I got to Cyprus. While things back home tend to move quite quickly such that the days seem to blend together and if you aren’t 10 minutes early you’re late, Cypriot time works differently. The people here seem to have a very laid back concept of time. It is acceptable if not expected for some things to be late. For instance, a stipulation of my student visa was to get blood work and a TB x-ray within 24 hours of arrival. The school set up the appointments 48 hours after my arrival despite plenty of advance notice of my arrival date and assured me it was all fine. They were correct. No one made the slightest fuss. I’ve been told, “relax, there’s plenty of time” about 10 times since I’ve arrived here in regards to many of the questions I’ve had regarding various deadlines. In many ways, it’s a lot less stressful.

So that’s my top 10 list of various culture shocks as a Canadian studying veterinary medicine in the Republic of Cyprus. Let me know in the comments if you knew any of these, and what I should write about next. Thanks for reading.